


Where Both Deliberate

by Violsva



Series: Arte Regendus [9]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, F/M, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Reconciliation, Slash, The Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:34:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/pseuds/Violsva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson, years later, finds he can have now what he wanted before, and that he still wants it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Both Deliberate

I did not write much of my own life, after Holmes’ death. I cannot express how much of a support Mary was during that time, but she was far more of a help than any man could ever have deserved. And the mere fact of her presence was a constant reminder that I had not lost everything. But I could not write of my life, the repetitive visits to and from patients and friends, with no spark anymore of genius in it.

Instead I polished and published all the accounts of his cases that I could find or remember. I had told them to Mary immediately after my return from each adventure; now she played as great a role in their publication as I. I had been talking with publishers about a series about Holmes before his death, but after it I would have changed my mind, had she not taken my hands one night and demanded that I tell her of Holmes.

“Something happy, John,” she said. “Like the Red-Headed League.”

So I told her about Jabez Wilson and Vincent Spaulding, although she already knew it, of course, and she looked at me after I had finished and said, “Write it down. Please, John.”

I wrote it down. She talked me into agreeing to a series of stories for the Strand, and I realized that writing them helped. I remembered the cases, the work and Holmes at his most logical and brilliant, and I could focus all my mind on that instead of my regrets and worse memories. And Mary was always there, encouraging me.

She suggested stories she had liked, or cases she had been tangentially involved in. She read over my accounts and offered praise and corrections, possible changes, rephrasing. They were immeasurably better for it. Holmes had complimented her mind, and now I saw it properly, dedicated to work she enjoyed.

We continued together for nearly a year at this work. Any case of interest, by Holmes’ definition of interest, made its way to the pages of the _Strand_ through our work, but my journal remained empty.

And emptier the next summer when Mary died as well.

I spent several months in a rather grey state. Immediately after the event – all I can say of that time is that I had not felt so even during the insane half-second when I had considered following Holmes over Reichenbach.

I did not recover so well then, with so little to hold onto afterwards. And it is the curse of being a doctor that one always believes one could have, ought to have, done something. It was such a little thing, septicaemia from a cut finger, and she died in less than a week. I was furious at myself as well as grieving, and I remembered as well that it had been my mistake that left Holmes alone at Reichenbach.

It was one of the bleakest periods of my life after 1880. I let my editors at the _Strand_ make deals with American magazines during the summer of 1892, and did not write. But in autumn I took it up again, having nothing else to turn to.

I could perhaps have continued for years – certainly there was no shortage of material. But it seemed such an empty practice now, without Mary to listen and read them over and make suggestions. I was contracted for another twelve, and they were duly published, the process eased by Mary’s and my advance work the previous spring. But at the end of them I published my account of Holmes’ death and intended to cease altogether.

Perhaps I should have realized how much of a help the memories had been, for after publishing _The Final Problem_ I could not help but find myself reliving my grief at Holmes’ death. But that faded, and although the London winter did not provide an encouraging environment for it my interest in life did wax over the season.

And then I was presented with the return of my dearest friend. I was overjoyed and disbelieving that first night, but after I returned home and took up my usual meagre practice the next day I was even more so. I could not trust my memory of Holmes’ resurrection unless he was standing directly in front of me. As soon as my office hours were over I was back at Baker Street.

Holmes had been setting up equipment at his chemistry table, but he turned at my entrance and smiled brilliantly. “My dear Watson,” he said. He said nothing more, but his voice was uncharacteristically warm. I greeted him normally, but all I could do afterwards was stand and look at him. Thinner than before, greyer than before, but with the same casual grace.

It was both familiar and ridiculous. I had wanted, more than ten years ago, to stare at him as I was now, catching every detail of him. But then I had been able to hide it. Now, no longer practised at it, or perhaps merely without the same motive, I could not stop myself.

He let me stand there, as he walked to the liquor cabinet and poured me a drink. He crossed the room to hand it to me, as I kept my gaze on his movements, searching for any sign of past injury. Then he said, “Come sit down,” and reached for my shoulder, and I flinched violently away from his hand.

“Watson?” he said sharply, and what I saw in his face might be fear.

“How could you?” I whispered.

His face fell. “I wanted to tell you,” he said. “Believe me.”

“How could you ever?” I snapped. I placed my glass heavily on a side table. “How could you leave everything without a word, and now come back to it, and still stand there as if nothing has changed?” His lips pressed together, as if with pain, but he said nothing. “Holmes, you were dead! I couldn’t – I thought -” I had no idea how I intended to end those sentences.

“I know,” he said. “I know it was unforgivable of me. I wish I had been able to do anything else.”

“But why couldn’t you? You could have done a million other things.”

“I had no time to plan,” he said. His voice was quiet, not assertive or commanding at all, and he was not meeting my eyes. “If I had, I cannot say what I would have done. But you see, I had only seconds, as I told you.”

“You told your brother,” I said. “You told me nothing.”

“It was not practical. Watson, had I had my choice of how to spend the last three years, it would have been in a far different setting, I promise you.” His gaze had jumped to focus on mine.

“Damn practicality. Was it practical to go yourself, with no possibility of assistance, and leave me to mourn?”

“Do you exp– what I mean to say is that any attempt to contact you would have got me killed. Is that plain enough for you?”

“You are _Sherlock Holmes_ , for God’s sake!” I said. “You could have got some coded message to me.”

He paced a little, and having for the moment vented my pain I did not press him. “Watson,” he said at last, “I sent one telegram at the beginning of my travels. It was not to my brother Mycroft, but to one of his agents. It was in Italian, for I was in Italy at the time; once translated it was in a private code Mycroft and I have shared since we were children, which no one else has broken so far. This is the length I had to go to merely to inform my brother and request funds. I certainly could not send anything to you, since it was known how close you were to me. And any second message after that one would have made it all the more noticeable. Please believe that I wanted to.”

“You could have told your brother to inform me. They wouldn’t have any more clues where you were then.”

“Mycroft is known for his misanthropy and solitary tendencies. It would be utterly out of character for him to visit you. And if, after such a visit, you immediately stopped mourning – as you would have done, even if you had tried to keep up the appearance of it – what conclusion do you think Moriarty’s men would have drawn?”

“Did they not already know you were still alive? You said Moran did.”

“Moran knew, but had no authority over them. Moriarty trusted him, but that was no reason the others would. Watson, please believe that if I could have told you, I would have.” His tone had changed abruptly from logical argument to something that was almost pleading. “I wanted to. I burned a hundred letters and telegrams to you. But I could not risk it. It was not only the threat to myself, but to you. I couldn’t.”

“It was logical, then,” I said. “But Holmes -”

“Yes,” he said shortly, preempting me. “Yes, it was abominable and unworthy of me, or of your friendship, rather. I know. I quite understand if you’ve come to tell me so.”

“No,” I said. “I did not mean to. I didn’t realize how much it affected me. I only came because I could not believe you had truly returned.”

“Oh,” said Holmes.

“Give me some time to get used to it,” I managed. “I am not angry with you, Holmes, not truly.”

“As you like,” said Holmes. “You have the run of these rooms, as always, and I should be glad to see you in them. But even if you are not angry, do believe that I am penitent.” His face was clear of expression, but his voice was not.

It was more emotion that I had expected from him. I nodded, and sat. I believed him. But I couldn’t speak further, couldn’t be normal around the man who stood before me like – I couldn’t think of an analogy that wasn’t blasphemous.

Holmes placed the glass he had poured for me on the table beside my armchair. He lit a pipe and leaned against the wall by the fireplace.

“I feel just the same,” he said after a pause of some minutes. “It is rather difficult to believe that I am in London again, and that I won’t wake up and suddenly find myself in a tent somewhere in Asia.”

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose it is like that.”

Later visits grew less silent, and as London and Scotland Yard remembered that they could again call upon the powers of Sherlock Holmes at need I received invitations to join Holmes on cases. Usually he appeared himself, bright-eyed and energetic despite the lingering pallor from his years away, to pull me out of my office with nothing but a short word with my neighbour.

I had never dedicated myself to improving my medical practice and gaining patients as I should have, and it had remained quite small as a result, producing little more than I and Mary had needed to live on. Therefore my absence caused few difficulties – so few that on days when I didn’t see Holmes I had nearly nothing to fill my time with. I had mostly given up the vices that had threatened my income after my return from Afghanistan, and my stories were still drawing royalties, so my livelihood was not in serious danger. However, I began to consider whether it was worth continuing my practice when I could gain company and occupation by returning to Baker Street, and moving back in with Holmes.

But I had seen no sign that Holmes wanted me to return permanently, and after the first year we had never lived together simply as friends. And that was all it would be. Even if, two years after her death, I could think of anyone other than Mary, it would not, I thought, be Holmes.

Yet Holmes’ resurrection had nearly erased my remaining grief for both of them, and I didn’t know if I could forgive myself for that either.

But I followed him, as I always had.

At first Holmes was only called in officially on matters of the greatest importance, so most of his cases came from private clients. He had tried to keep the newspaper reports to a minimum, still disdaining any form of public adulation, but he could not erase all mention of his return from, as one of the more hysterical rags put it, “his watery grave.” As these reports were the source of the larger part of his work, however, he did not complain too much. Those who read of his reappearance were even more eager to seek his help than before.

So we were called on the case of Colonel Carruthers, and that of the papers of the South American ex-president, which, if I ever write it down, will no doubt have to be heavily edited. On the latter occasion I was visiting him when the case was introduced to him, and he did not invite me with him – he simply assumed that of course I would come, and I did.

Perhaps it was that case that reminded the official detectives that they could call upon Holmes if necessary, for it was Inspector Lestrade who introduced us to the affair of the Dutch steamship _Friesland_ , in June.

I say _us_ for I was at Baker Street again, still not quite certain that Holmes would not vanish if I had not seen him for a day. Holmes was playing scales on his violin as he conversed with me. I had not heard him play properly since his return, only these repetitive exercises. If I was unlucky, they would be followed by him shaking out his hands and spending the rest of the afternoon in a sullen silence. I was considering ways of stopping him before he reached that point when the bell rang.

Holmes broke off in the middle of a sentence to glance out the window, and smiled. “A case, my dear – fellow,” he said. He loosened the bow and put it and his violin back in the case. “He comes in person, so it isn’t urgent, but that may make it all the more likely to be interesting.”

There came the familiar sounds of the downstairs door opening and footsteps on the stairs, and then Inspector Lestrade entered without knocking. “Good afternoon, Mr Holmes, Doctor,” he said. “It’s not exactly official business that I have, but could you take a look at some things for me?”

“Of course,” said Holmes. “Do sit down. If it’s not official business, would you care for a drink – no?”

“I am on duty,” said Lestrade. “It’s just that I’m not sure of this, and it ought to be checked by someone outside the Yard at first, I think.”

“Well, I certainly occupy that useful position,” said Holmes. “Does it have anything to do with the disappearance of Henry Thomas two days ago, just before you were to arrest him?”

Lestrade jumped. “I don’t know how you know about that, Mr Holmes, but you’ve hit on it. Henry Thomas just showed up, you see, in France, arrested by the Sureté. We think it’s him, it sounds like him, he’s committed a similar crime, but we haven’t got any actual evidence. Even if we did it’d be tricky getting a hold of him, though he seems to be safe enough with the French lot. It’s a nuisance, is what it is, and I’d say he was laughing at us if it wasn’t clear he’s just that stupid.”

“Yes,” said Holmes, “I was rather surprised that he had managed to escape even you.”

I didn’t think that Lestrade had missed the insult, but all he said was, “He clearly couldn’t have done it by himself, is what I’m saying. So who’s been helping him?”

“You evidently have a theory,” said Holmes. “It is not the first time this has happened, after all.”

“It isn’t,” Lestrade acknowledged. “You don’t miss a trick, do you? Most of them were before you – before. But there’s been two or three others since.”

“Bloody Bill Michaels, as he called himself, and the West End jewel thieves,” said Holmes. “Possibly the Rosswold thief as well.”

“ _And_ the Wright’s Bank robbers,” said Lestrade with some satisfaction at having caught something Holmes missed.

“Actually, they fell out with each other,” said Holmes with authority. “One of them has left the city, but is still in England. The other, I suspect, you’ll see again shortly.”

“Well, everyone has their own ideas,” said Lestrade, frowning. “But the point is, criminals, of the same type and probably with the same sort of friends, keep disappearing on us, and I want to know who’s doing it. Gregson thinks it’s all a fluke, of course, but he would. But there’s never anything to go on, even when we know where they lived. We’ve gone over everything we _can_ go over, Mr Holmes, when dealing with that sort, and there’s no evidence how they’re leaving. We need you to look for them yourself, if you don’t mind, and find us a starting-point.”

“Hmm,” said Holmes. “Yes, of course. But I must think over this a little first, Lestrade.”

“Of course. It’s damned puzzling, certainly. Wire me if you want to take a look at Thomas’ rooms. During normal hours, mind you.”

“Of course.”

“But there’s nothing you need right now? Good, I’ve got to get back to the Yard. Good day, Mr Holmes, Doctor.”

He left with that, and Holmes smiled and immediately turned to his shelves of records. What he took down was the slim volume of recent news which he had been collecting in the few months since his return.

“That for tomorrow, or this evening, I think,” he said, laying it on his desk. “But now, Watson, if you don’t mind, I’ve some enquiries to make regarding this case.”

“Do you know where to start already, then?”

“Of course. The method of escape can only be a boat; therefore the place to start is Lloyd’s registers and the shipping records.”

“Will it be listed in them?”

“I expect so. The easiest thing would be to hide such activity behind legitimacy – no unauthorized vessel could arrive in London so frequently without an unacceptably high risk of capture. I’ll be going to look into that now. I think it would be rather dull for you, but I’ll see you out. I feel like starting immediately, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” I remembered, almost with surprise, that this was not my home, and I had better return to my practice. Holmes handed me my hat with a small smile, and we progressed down the stairs.

“You’re sure you don’t want any assistance?” I could not stop myself from asking.

“Not for this part of it, but it may well grow in interest yet,” said Holmes, smiling almost broadly. “We’ll hope it gives you something for further overdramatic accounts – Watson, what is the reason for that expression? You must have realized I would read them.” I had stopped at the foot of the stairs, and was staring at him. I couldn’t help it.

“I didn’t,” I said. I couldn’t stop my joy from showing. “You read them.” I didn’t care what he thought of them – he had read them. I had thought he never would.

“Well, when I returned to England and found myself to be something of a celebrity, what else could I do?” he said. I expected him to leave it at that, but he added, “They are rather good. Comparatively.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling at his familiar grudging praise.

“She helped,” he said. I blinked at him, still not reaccustomed to his insights, and he clarified. “Your wife. They show something of her hand.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “She edited them, and assisted greatly. She was vital.” I wondered if I should apologize – there was something peculiarly personal about my stories, even stripped as they had to be of any revealing detail. But I wouldn’t. I would have done nothing worthwhile without Mary’s help – I could not apologize for it.

“Good,” said Holmes. He opened the door and held it for me, and all I could do was hurry after him and step into the cab he summoned for me, wondering what he meant by that.

I called on him the next day, and Mrs. Hudson told me he was out. “Off in one of his disguises,” she said, with decided disapproval. “I suppose it’s no worse than having that sort come in themselves, and I’m used to that, but he might warn a woman before knocking on her door looking nothing like himself. He left a message for you if you should come, though.”

It was merely a note saying, _Matters proceeding well. I will be investigating at the docks for at least the next two days. I hope to see you shortly._

It was more notice than I had expected – he had never warned me of an extended absence before. Even when I had lived with him Mrs. Hudson and I had sometimes not seen him for a full week without any idea where he was. I thanked her for the note and went home to await Holmes or a telegram, feeling oddly warmed.

It was four days later that I received a knock on my door after the servants had retired. It might, certainly, have been a patient, but I was in hopes it was Holmes, and they were fulfilled. He had evidently only just returned from some undercover work; although he had changed clothes in some bolt-hole of his he was not entirely returned to his neat self.

“Rather late, I know, Watson,” he said, “but I’ve just finished my work, I think, and perhaps you wouldn’t mind hearing of it?”

“Come in, of course,” I said. “Tell me what you have found out.”

He didn’t, immediately; instead he followed me into my drawing-room with more silence than I expected from him. I had seen when he hung up his hat that his face was a little marked, and his hands not quite clean. He had come straight from the docks, then, barely taking the time to remove his disguise. I wondered, as I gestured him to a chair, if I had ever seen him like this in public. I offered him my tobacco and he accepted it gratefully.

“It is as well that I like strong tobacco,” he said, leaning back, “but one does like to at least have the possibility of better available. Barely three days among sailors and I do not feel quite myself.”

“I thought you once said that to take on a role you must take on the mindset as well? Surely you’ve done that before.”

“Far too much, recently,” said Holmes. “Business has not been going well for your practice, I see?”

“You might have guessed that by how much time I’ve had for your cases.”

“True, I suppose, but just as easily from your hall carpet. It is lucky I provide you with other occupation, then.”

“Much more than that,” I said without thinking. Holmes seemed to relax a little, and I realized from that easing that he had been very tense before. But if he was teasing me with deductions as of old he must be feeling all right. “What have you discovered?”

“Primarily that my contacts are out of date. Five years ago I could have done this in an evening. But of course the loss of Professor Moriarty shook up the more unsavoury parts of London society, and they are rarely very stable anyway.”

“Did you find the name of the ship at least?”

“Yes. There were three candidates, judging by the registries, all in port at the right times. I have been questing after those, asking everyone who might be of use. One of the three was the picture of respectability – I know of the captain, and besides it is a little small for the purpose. The second has an entirely foreign crew, with no connections in England, and the captain is known to despise thieves. Not a very well-liked man, in the circles I have been moving in. I backed all of this information up, and checked it against more legitimate sources; it seems genuine.”

“And the third ship?”

“Ah. The last is the _Friesland_ , of Dutch registry. She’s owned by a private trader, who seems to pay little attention to her, and her captain is one of the best customers at every tavern near the docks. A far more promising prospect, and she was not only in London at the right times, but France as well. At first, depending on whom I spoke to, I encountered either condemnation of her crew or silence – a very helpful silence.”

“Indicating they knew something of her?”

“Quite so. I dug up an old contact eventually and went back with his recommendation. She’s the one, Watson.”

“What is her crew doing? What were you told?”

“I was told nothing, even when I was trusted. But I was given hints enough. Without the background we have it would only seem evidence of smuggling. We must look into it to see if that is in fact all it is. But the particular phrasing, Watson, when they spoke of precisely how the _Friesland_ could be of aid, was eloquent. It was made to seem extremely personal. I was, you understand, posing as someone with a slim connection to river crime looking for a quick way out of England. If I went back at a certain time, I was to be given more information, but unfortunately that would require meeting with men who know me under a different name than the one I used.”

“So what will you do?”

“We will wait until she is in port again. That, at least, I did discover. She will be loaded with legitimate cargo as well as whatever else she carries. We have a week until she docks.”

I was cheered by the pronoun. “And then?”

“Then, we will skip the chancy world of secondhand information and go see for ourselves. That is,” he added, looking a little startled, “I will. You may be occupied otherwise, but if you are not -”

“I am not. I would like to come.”

“Excellent. She has taken at least one man with her every voyage since January, and likely more than that. We can assume she will do the same this time, and as she will only remain in London two nights it will take little effort to prove. I will look into the schedules as the date grows closer.” He stifled a yawn. “Excuse me. I must be off.”

“I have a spare room still,” I said. “You’re welcome to it.”

“No, I thank you, but I shall find a cab easily enough.”

“At this time of night? Holmes, do stay.”

“Mrs. Hudson will be worrying over me. Good night, Watson. No, you needn’t get up – well, if you insist.”

I saw him to my door, puzzling over his unwillingness to stay the night – he had occasionally done so before his – his – before – and watched him walk briskly out into the fog.

Over the course of the following week I visited him at Baker Street almost daily, as had become my habit. Holmes would smile at me and continue what he was doing for a few minutes, or make conversation, and then turn and suddenly ask me something like “How much can you carry?” or “Walk like a day-labourer for me, Watson.”

I would ask him what he meant by that, and he would wave a hand or give a very brief explanation, and I would do what he asked to the best of my ability, and he would correct me, mostly politely. Then we would go out.

We spent most afternoons by the docks, in Shadwell and Stepney, where we stood out like crows in snow. I assumed that Holmes was plotting a way to pass us off as locals on the actual day of the _Friesland_ ’s docking, but he showed little concern for that now. We did, however, stay out of the taverns and other establishments in the area, remaining on the shoreline and by the docks themselves. I wondered what on earth Holmes was looking for, but he did not seem frustrated as we continued not to find it.

I grew to expect that I would follow him around the worse parts of London every day, and so I was rather surprised at the end of the week when he showed no sign of leaving the comfort of his rooms. He was still playing scales on his violin, but he would interrupt the progression very now and then with some flourish or a few bars of a melody. It was surprisingly comforting background noise, though it felt rather ridiculous to sit in another man’s sitting room, reading the paper and saying nothing to each other.

“Are we not going to the docks today, then?” I asked eventually.

“No, I suspect I have found what I wanted.”

“Found it? You must have seen far more than I. So far as I could tell we have found nothing.”

“You are quite right, nothing at all. And that in itself is precisely what I wanted to find, for it tells me just as much as I would have learned had we fallen right into a secret passage.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“You will when you come with me tomorrow.”

“Come with you?”

“If you still do not mind.”

“Of course not.” Quite the opposite. But I was not used to him inviting me on adventures that would require disguise or concealment. “But where, if not to the docks?”

“It will be to the docks, and then on board the ship herself.”

“She is in port, then?”

“She arrives late tonight. Come early, and we will have this wrapped up quite quickly.”

Arriving early the next morning as directed, I found him dressed as a dockworker, and with a change of clothes for me.

“I thought this work would require a disguise,” I said.

“Indeed. Just put those on, and then wash the pomade out of your hair, if you don’t mind.” He gestured at the door to his bedroom. I sighed and cooperated.

“Good,” he said, when I returned from his room looking far worse than I had when I entered it. “We couldn’t have done this ten years ago, but you’ve lost some of your military bearing since then. Don’t speak to anyone.”

I laughed at the blunt warning. He glanced at me and tilted one of his eyebrows up.

I did not tell him he hadn’t changed, but I was tempted to.

“Now, then,” he said, his words beginning to cut themselves off halfway through in the Cockney manner, “off to the docks, and we’ll manage this ‘fore the day’s out.”

He used his normal voice and a large sum of money to bribe the cabby into taking us close to where we wanted to go, but we walked the last few blocks anyway, for verisimilitude.

Holmes gestured me closer to him as we reached a certain flurry of motion around one of the gangways, and leaned back against a wall nearby, turned carefully away from the men themselves. I attempted to mimic him, but could not stop myself from glancing back to the activity. I could not expect that we would simply be able to follow them up onto the ship.

“You!” said one of them, who had been relatively still in the midst of the rest. He was looking directly at me, and I cursed mentally and ducked further back. I had likely ruined this chance for us, as I should have known I would. Holmes was the man for disguise – had clearly been disguising himself for the last three years, in fact – he shouldn’t have taken me.

“Yes, you,” said the man who had caught sight of me, coming around the corner. “Both of you. I saw your guilty look. You can stay and get paid, or you can walk off now, but don’t think I won’t notice if you show up later pretending you worked all morning.”

Holmes swore under his breath, stubbed out the cigarette he had lit, and turned back. “’Course,” he said with ill grace, and he strode over to the men loading the ship. I followed him, the foreman hurrying me on.

Holmes gestured me to one end of a crate and we lifted it together, the foreman’s suspicious eye still on us. My friend turned to face backwards as we took it up the gangway, and I smiled at him in thanks. He frowned quellingly.

We followed a line of men with similar burdens down below, and dropped the crate where they dropped theirs. Holmes let us fall to the back of the group, and the side opposite the other men entering. When I glanced at him I saw his eyes moving with their habitual speedy observation, and I was not surprised when he pulled me to one side. We ducked into a small room full of pipes and vents.

It wasn’t a true room, but a space between sections of the hold. There were various knobs and dials on the pipes, and the whole area was very humid. But the boiler was elsewhere, so it was bearable, and empty of crew.

Holmes inspected it carefully and then leaned against the door, trying to hear out. At last he said, low enough to barely be audible under the rushing of water and steam in the pipes, “The maintenance room – excellent. The engineers will not be about today, and we can remain here for some time. They will not take more than an hour to load the ship, I believe. After that there will be fewer men aboard and we can explore the crew’s quarters, where the stowaways most likely stay. They likely smuggled them aboard at the earliest opportunity. It isn’t safe for them in London, after all. If so, we will hear them being spoken of, or see the arrangements made for them, and that will be the solid proof we need. Then back to shore, and off to Scotland Yard. We should be finished by supper.”

I was not pleased by this news – while my borrowed clothes were less heavy than a gentleman’s, they were not light enough to make the humidity enjoyable – but I settled back against the wall next to him and waited as well.

“Excellent work at the docks, by the way,” said Holmes. “Appearing eager for work draws suspicion. Appear to be trying to avoid it and you will be dragged in. I admit I was hoping you would react as you did.”

I blinked. “Oh, that’s what you were about.” I wondered if I was annoyed he hadn’t told me or pleasantly surprised he still knew me well enough to predict my actions.

“Just so.”

Holmes never seems to find the waiting required in the course of his work difficult. He is dreadfully impatient between cases, or when forced to wait for information, but when his waiting has a purpose he seems to draw into himself and focus entirely on his plans. He leaned calmly against the wall by the door, head tilted back and eyes closed, and I stood next to him trying not to fidget or talk, lest we be heard.

The ambient noise of the room, however, covered our presence well enough that extreme caution was not required. It also covered sounds from outside, at least for me. Holmes, however, appeared to be listening, though with him it was sometimes hard to tell.

At any rate, he must have been responding to some external signal when he suddenly straightened and took my arm. But he was forestalled by the door opening from the outside, and the entrance of four men.

They did not quite appear to be sailors, though they fit in well enough with the men who had been loading the ship. They stopped in surprise at our presence, however.

“They didn’t say there were others already here,” said one.

“You’re part of the crew, right?” said the second. “We’re looking for -”

“You idiots,” said the third. “Look at the nose. That’s -”

Holmes lashed out and struck him with a wrench he had grabbed in their moment of hesitation. He fell, but he was not unconscious, and the others had caught his meaning. In seconds we were all fighting, and the criminals, as I supposed them to be, were not as unarmed as I had hoped.

I got in a few good blows as I tried to draw my revolver, but the difficulty was not the odds but the noise. The last of the men who had entered was still fighting when a sailor appeared at the door with a pistol, which he immediately pointed at Holmes.

“Hold still, Jerry,” he said. “I’ve got them.”

I thrust my half-drawn firearm back into my pocket, hoping he hadn’t seen it. Any other motion would only make him more likely to shoot Holmes, or turn his focus to me. Jerry used the opportunity to grab my wrists. “Is it Sherlock Holmes?” he said.

“Yes, very good,” said the one with the pistol. Two more men appeared behind him. “Got rope?” he asked, without looking at them. One assented. “Good. Tie them up and follow me. No point in either of you shouting,” he added. “No one else is aboard, and you’re trespassing anyway.”

We both struggled against their actions, but the pistol remained directed at Holmes and we couldn’t hope to escape.

We were led deeper into the hold. The corridors were all deserted – Holmes had likely been waiting for them to be, but so had the criminals. They followed behind us – there was clearly no chance whatsoever of using the leader’s distraction to get away. We stopped in a hot, dark passage before a door that looked the same as all the others. When opened, it led to a dark room which gleamed faintly in the corners.

“Put the other one in here,” said the leader, and I was shoved in. I landed hard, on rocks. It was the coal room, mostly empty now. The door closed, and before I truly realized that we were being separated I was locked alone in the dark.

For hours there was nothing but darkness, occasional footsteps above, and the long, slow process of struggling out of my bonds. My hands were behind me and I couldn’t see anything at all, so I doubted I would be successful, but it gave me something to focus on.

There was nothing by which to tell time. A man imprisoned in that black room for longer than a day would doubtless go mad. Almost as soon as the door closed it seemed I had been there simultaneously for hours and for less than five minutes. I cannot say, therefore, how long it was before I noticed that the rope on my wrists was straining a little, the knots stretched enough to let me turn my wrists against each other. It was painful – the hemp had scratched the skin raw – and I still could not actually free myself, but it was something.

And then I heard a loud, sharp bang, breaking the silence of the ship. The noise was only momentary, but it continued echoing off the metal all around the ship for many seconds afterwards. It was, I realized, a gunshot.

At the first sound I had jerked my hands suddenly forwards in surprise. At this realization I took advantage of the further ease this had put in my bonds and wrestled with them with more strength than ever before. For there was only one reason I could think of for a shot. Holmes must have escaped, and been found out.

With this added motivation, I at last managed to worm one of my hands out of the bonds. They dug into my other wrist fiercely as I did so, and by the time I had pulled it out as well the rope was unpleasantly sticky, but I was free.

I flexed my fingers for some time to check that there was no serious injury before pulling my revolver out of my pocket. They had not searched me after tying my hands. I didn’t know if Holmes had his weapon, however. If he had fired the shot – but more likely, I knew, was that it had been fired at him.

I felt my way to a wall, careful with my steps so I did not stumble over coal. From there I found the door easily enough. It was locked, of course. I set myself to wait there, listening as hard as I could.

It seemed a very short time after that I heard footsteps. I tensed, though there was little reason for it; men had passed without hesitation before while I had been imprisoned there, though infrequently.

These, however, stopped. A key rattled in the lock, and then lantern light showed through the growing slit as the door opened. I stopped myself from looking at it directly and waited for the man to enter the room.

He was fully inside and closing the door again before he realized that I was not merely concealed by the dimness but out of his line of sight altogether. He whirled as I got behind him, and my first blow missed his head, though it landed heavily on his shoulder and made him drop the lantern. Unfortunately, the flame did not die, and I was still handicapped by the unaccustomed glare. I didn’t know what weapons he might have.

He had not called for help, thankfully. We struggled for some time, but at last I twisted him under me and could club his head with the butt of my gun. He slumped, and I lowered him to the floor. There were more footsteps in the hallway; it was lucky I had overcome him so quickly. Perhaps I could make the man approaching tell me where Holmes was.

The door to the coal room burst open and Holmes himself stood framed in it, blinking for a moment in the dimness. He looked utterly unlike himself, paler than chalk and wide-eyed. His face was desperate and grieving, as if he expected to find something horrible in the room.

“Holmes?” I said, and he gasped and focused on me. A second later he was holding me, fingers tight around my biceps, staring into my face.

“Watson,” he said. “Oh, thank God. Are you hurt?”

“No,” I said. “I’m quite all right.”

He had thrown me a little off balance. His eyes never left my face, though his hands twitched a little, as if he wanted to move them but could not let go of my arms. “How many were there?”

“Just the one,” I said, nodding to the still form on the floor.

“Not now, I mean before.”

“No one,” I said. “I’ve been left alone. They were focused on you.”

“None – oh.” He relaxed all at once. “Oh. Thank God.” This last was under his breath; I should not have heard it if he had not still been holding me. He let go of my arms slowly, as if with difficulty.

“I’ve learned what I need,” he said, not quite as casually as he normally would. “We’d best get off this blasted boat and get some rest. Leave him, his shipmates will find him soon enough.”

That, at least, was Holmes as I expected him to be. I began to follow him out the door, and then grabbed his sleeve. He turned to look at me, and winced.

“What has happened to your arm?” I asked.

“My arm?” asked Holmes. He lifted the limb and then stopped suddenly, wincing again. “Oh, yes, I think it was hit.”

“Holmes!” I said, and I turned him quickly so I could see the wound.

“It’s nothing, Watson,” he said, pulling away, and then suppressing a gasp.

“Holmes,” I said, taking hold of his shoulder. “Let me look.” My voice was not quite as usual.

He blinked at me, and then wordlessly extended his arm. I turned it, though he hissed with pain at the motion. On the inside, a few inches below his armpit, a hole in his sleeve leaked blood. It was this that had first drawn my attention to it. It was hard to see against his dark coat, but his entire sleeve, past the elbow, was damp and stiffening with gore. It was a miracle he had been able to move the arm at all, but Holmes is capable of surprising things.

I tore off my cravat and pulled a handkerchief out of my sleeve. “Hold still,” I told him. I pressed the handkerchief to the wound and bound it down hard, keeping as much pressure on the wound as I could. No blood leaked through, a good sign, but I had no idea how much he had already lost.

“When did you get this?” I said. “What happened?”

“Only a few minutes ago,” he said. “Perhaps a quarter of an hour. I don’t entirely remember, I was distracted just now. Watson, can we please go?”

“Of course,” I said. “That will need to be properly treated. I hope you are finished your work?”

“ _Quite_ finished,” said Holmes, with emphasis. He pulled me out of the cabin with his good arm and led me on a quick, twisting path through the dark ship. It was entirely empty and silent. I supposed the crew was on shore, taking advantage of their leave, while the men who had captured us had planned to use their absence to hide the stowaways and dispose of us.

When we were back on the deck Holmes redoubled his caution, keeping me next to him at all times as we stayed within shadows on our way to the shoreward side.

There was, of course, a problem: the gangway had been taken down overnight. Holmes glanced down at the water, swore with a passion and profanity I could not have imagined from him, and stared over the edge. I assumed he was thinking up a plan, but he said nothing.

“Holmes?” I ventured at last.

“A damned idiotic plan,” Holmes said. “I’m a bloody fool. I should have prepared for the chance of us staying later.”

I blinked at him. “There are boats, Holmes.”

“They are attached to pulleys. Too much noise.”

“We could cut them off, surely, and lower one ourselves. Then use the same rope to go down.”

Holmes blinked at me, then nodded. “They’ll know how we left, of course, but they would know that anyway, and if we cut the rope behind us there should be no difficulty. You may have to row yourself, though, Watson. I think I may be past that, now.”

“I’ve no intention of letting you row. I wouldn’t recommend the rest of this exercise to you either, were there another way of getting off.”

Holmes only nodded. “Well. Let us set to it, then.”

It was not a task I would have relished at midday after a good sleep and a hearty meal, and I could not have managed it at all that night were it not so necessary. But we at last dragged a boat away from its coverings and to the side of the ship, where we fastened it to a length of rope and lifted it over the rail. I was nervous about every little sound, but there was no choice but to continue to work. I went down first, with extreme care and not a little clumsiness, and then watched nervously as Holmes followed me. Generally I knew he would think nothing of a climb down a rope, but I winced at the thought of the strain on his arm.

It was a very short trip to an area of the docks where we could climb up easily, and after that we had only to find a street where a hansom cab would willingly venture at this time of night. Holmes gestured for me to enter first, then called, “221 Baker Street,” as he followed.

“Are we not going to Scotland Yard?” I asked when the cab jerked forward.

“Tomorrow. Not tonight, for God’s sake, Watson.” He leaned back against the inadequate upholstery, his eyes closed in apparent exhaustion. His wound must be worse than he was letting on, I thought with concern. But there was nothing to be done about that inside a cab.

“Can you tell me what happened, now?”

“Yes, of course. They recognized us, or at least me, from the papers.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. That was a detail I had not anticipated. I was always good enough at disguising myself in the past, but recently I have been front page news. I should perhaps not have attempted this so soon after that.”

“And what happened after they separated us? You looked so horrified when you found me. How did you get that wound?”

Holmes bit his lip. “It cannot have been very different from what happened to you,” he said.

“No one shot me.”

“Well. They knew you weren't Sherlock Holmes.”

“They can't have been trying to kill you, unless it was from a distance.”

“I was in the process of escaping. The leader arrived sooner than I expected.”

“Holmes, I am completely at sea.” He raised an eyebrow, and I winced a little at the turn of phrase but persisted. “Start from the beginning. What happened?”

He sighed. “They merely took me to a disused cabin and locked me in. It took me far longer than it should have to free my hands – he was uncommonly good at that, whoever tied us up. Then I set about picking the lock. One of the more legitimate uses of such skills, I suppose.”

“And they caught you when you left?”

“No, later than that. They hadn’t bothered to set a watch on the door. I went to find you first, and as soon as I was out of the crew’s quarters the leader saw me, the one with the pistol. He was on the ladder going up, though, and couldn’t run after me when I noticed him.”

“That was when he shot you.”

“Yes. He wouldn’t have, had I not been escaping – they were no doubt planning to simply throw us over the side as soon as it was dark enough. He started to take me to the ladder then, no doubt for that purpose. I fought him.”

“With a bullet wound?”

“Yes. I had a hard time of it at first, but I had, I suppose, more motivation.”

“I should say so, if he was about to have you drowned.”

“Yes. Yes, there was that.” He stared forward, though for once he did not seem to be truly seeing the streets in front of us. “So I knocked him out, and went to find you.” There was a clear air of finality in his tone, and he kept his eyes ahead. I leaned back against the seat. I had known the timing of his wound from the gunshot, but this confirmed it. He was not in too much danger. And once Holmes had decided he was finished speaking, he generally couldn’t be made to give more details.

I was surprised, therefore, to hear his voice again a few minutes later. “He told me they had killed you.”

“He – what?”

“After he shot me. He said you’d fought them, and I thought – I took you there with me. I dragged you into this – normally I would not have, but now ... and I had been the cause of your...”

He did not continue. I turned, not used to Holmes being unable to finish a sentence.

He was staring straight ahead at the horses, his face a little drawn. His skin was so ashen it almost glowed in the darkness, and I did not think it was entirely from the wound.

“You’re pale,” I said, using it as an excuse to reach for him. He turned slightly towards my hand. He was a little cold, but there was nothing concerning in his condition. It was purely due to the mental strain, then.

“It was a deeply unpleasant thought,” he said. The tone was that he used for his habitual understatement; if he was saying that much out loud, what he had been thinking must be far worse.

“But I was entirely unharmed,” I said, putting all the comfort I could into my voice.

“It’s still there, Watson,” was all he said in reply. “I can still see your body lying there, or, God, an empty room, even if the image was entirely spurious.”

I rested my hand on his shoulder, and he reached up and held it with his own. It might pass as comfort between friends, after the evening we had had. And no one but us would see it, in a hansom at night.

I remembered my wedding night then, when I had stood at a window with Mary after dinner. I had kissed her, and she had looked up at me and smiled, and it had occurred to me that she took it completely for granted that we could kiss with neither curtains nor a locked door between us and the world. I had felt triumphant then, that at last I could tell the world about a lover of mine, even if it was an entirely different situation than the last.

Now, did I want to go back to hiding, when I could find a woman and love openly?

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t ever find a woman, or another man, like Holmes.

Of course, that was not wholly a benefit. God knew Holmes had driven me to the end of my patience more than once.

I had seen no sign that he was still in thrall to his drugs, at least, though there were certainly times when he was as withdrawn and quiet as he had been in his black reactions. But I had decided to make that no longer my business, and I had no wish to take it up again.

I was so very tempted, though. Not physically, although that element had not, as I had thought it must, diminished. But I felt very tender towards him, as he sat next to me in the hansom and did not complain of how it must be jarring his wound, as he stared forward and held my hand as if he needed to know my pulse still beat.

We sat in silence for the rest of the ride, not releasing each other until we stopped in front of our door. When we were there, I let Holmes precede me to the house as I paid the driver, then joined him in the warm foyer in time to stop him trying to remove his outer garments himself. I called for Mrs. Hudson, requested water and a light supper, and ushered Holmes upstairs.

“Sit down,” I said as soon as we were through our door. Holmes did, without protest or any sign that he considered my concern needless. I picked up my black bag from beside the door and carried it to him, and took a moment to light all the lamps nearby.

I very carefully removed the makeshift bandage – now good for nothing else – from his arm. He bit his lip and remained still. I helped him remove the right side of his coat, and then eased it off his wounded arm. His shirt went the same way, though at this point he could not suppress a hiss of pain as it parted from his skin.

Taking care to hurt him as little as possible, I was leaning over his arm as I removed the sleeve. And so I saw his bare skin, fair as ever, still scarred, but not quite as it had used to be.

Mrs. Hudson came in with warm water and a sponge, and I accepted them gratefully. She placed the food on a table at Holmes’ other side, where it could easily be reached.

I cleaned the threads and blood from Holmes’ wound, and I could not stop myself looking at the rest of his arm as I did so. I had been right. The old scars were there, but there were no new ones.

I pulled iodine from my bag and applied it gently, though of course that did nothing to stop the sting. “No need for stitches,” I said. “It’s too shallow and wide for them to be of use.” Holmes nodded. It had in fact been just a graze, not at all dangerous if it did not become infected. More bandages, proper ones this time, and I was finished.

That he had stopped using his drugs had not entirely surprised me – in his travels, surely he would not have always had a constant supply. But now, back in London, he had not started again. He had continued to abstain, had been sober every time I came to see him. He was himself, had been himself for these four months, perhaps the longest unbroken time in all the years I had known him.

He had clung to my presence just as he had used to when we lived together, seeing me every day, smiling at me as if he was continually surprised to see me. As if he could never be tired of me. When I had dropped by to find him silent and melancholy on the settee, he had neither snapped at me nor turned me out. I had gone to sit next to him and he had sighed and leaned towards me. That had been _him_. He wanted me still, and the cocaine no longer.

No doubt he would not always be so accommodating as he had been the last few months. He could be quite sharp without the drugs. He would not be Holmes if he was capable of sitting through wild theories or misinterpretations of evidence without a caustic remark. But I didn’t want him to be anything else. I simply wanted to know that all his moods were _his_ , and all his words fully meant.

Holmes drew in a tight breath when I was done. He caught my eye, and I realized that he had seen me notice his arm. I smiled at him involuntarily.

He did not smile back, but looked away, and said with unhappy determination, “I must tell you that I cannot promise I will never start again.”

“I know,” I said. He looked me full in the face with surprise. “Holmes, I told you it was addiction. I know.”

“I will try,” he whispered.

I cleaned up. It was too much. This night, everything that had happened, that I had seen in him – it was all too much. I did not let myself think too much _what_.

I tidied my supplies back into my medical bag, fitting every individual instrument or roll of bandages carefully into its right place. I rang for Mrs. Hudson to take down the basin of murky water. I handed Holmes his dressing gown. Holmes stretched his arm up cautiously, then out to the side, stopping the moment he started to wince. He stood and pulled his dressing gown on and twisted carefully from the waist. Mrs Hudson came up, smiled to see him in motion, and took the basin and tray down, with a warning not to call for her again that night. Holmes stretched his arm to its limit again, then pressed it against his side, then held it naturally.

“Excellent work as always, Watson,” he said. I smiled a little, but turned away as the expression quickly fell off my face. Now, he was walking. But if he had been worried over my life tonight, I had had far more cause.

Holmes crossed the room to me and lightly pulled me to face him. I could not make myself look normal.

“It was not so bad, was it?” he asked, smiling a little.

“Not there,” I said, my voice very low. “But two inches to the right and it would have been your heart, or your lungs. Holmes...”

I was staring into his eyes, grey and clear, eyes I had nearly lost a second time. He held my gaze, looking back at me as if there was nothing strange in it. “John,” he whispered, lips barely moving. I was dreadfully dizzy, his gaze the only thing holding me up.

“You _can’t_ ,” I choked out, unable to stop myself. “You can’t, not without me, never again...”

“I can’t,” he said with absolute confidence, and then I was kissing him.

He gasped in a quick breath, then tangled a hand into my hair and kissed me back. He kissed desperately, and I felt at once how long it had been since we had done this. The thought did not make me remember that time, though, or the years in between. It only made me press back against him and open my mouth for his.

His hand slid under the back of my coat. My hands were pulling at the cloth of his dressing gown, caressing his back through it and trying desperately to get it off him again. I could not, of course, with his arms in front of him, but he would not stop touching me.

My tongue explored his mouth, comparing with how he had felt before, how he had tasted, how he had breathed or held his breath. He stroked my scalp and pressed his hips against mine. I ground harder into him unconsciously and he groaned deep in his throat.

I pulled away from him and he gasped and reached for me again, fear in his face. I untied his dressing gown and shoved it off his shoulders and watched him smile.

I had not let myself think of his bare chest as sexual while treating his wound. Now it was nothing but sexual, though hardly at all as I remembered. There were more scars, bruises from tonight, a difference in the way he held himself. I reached for him again, to learn him anew.

He pushed my hands away and efficiently stripped off my coat and shirt. Then his arms wrapped around me and we kissed again, glorying in the feel of each other’s naked skin. I stumbled as one of his hands found my nipple, and when I recovered pushed him towards the settee. He twisted and I ended up sitting, pulling him astride my lap. He stared down at me with wide dark eyes and then caught my head and bent to kiss me again.

I lost myself then in his mouth and hands and his hips where they bucked against mine. I touched every inch of his bare skin I could reach, then slid my hands down to press him closer to me, my neck arching far back so we could still kiss. He groans were lost inside my mouth. He rolled his hips against mine, rubbing himself on my straining need. I moved to mouth at his neck, and no longer needing to bend to reach me he was free to arch back and thrust against me.

It could never be enough for either of us. I reached forward and grabbed at the front of his trousers and he hissed and bucked on me. Then he jerked my head up and kissed me again.

It should have been as rough as the rest of our passion, but instead his tongue softly pressed my mouth open and licked into me, deep but very gentle. He pulled the rest of his body away from mine despite my protests, then slowly pulled his lips away as well. He knelt on the floor between my legs and wrapped his arms around my chest, pressing his lips against any skin in front of them before moving his head downwards.

His fingers prepared the way for his mouth, and I fell back against the settee as he pulled me out of my trousers and past his lips. His hands settled on my hipbones. His tongue set to work.

He gave me just what I wanted and more, bringing me all the pleasure he could with his impossibly clever mouth. His lips were tight and hot and his tongue slid across me with incredibly precise ardour. I could do nothing but lie there and let him drive me wild.

With all his focus on me, on relearning me and reminding me, I felt my completion rising in moments. I held it off, needing more of this, never wanting the pleasure to end, until at last it overwhelmed me. I barely kept myself from shouting, and I could not hold back the thrusts of my hips, the jerks of my entire body. His fingers only gripped me harder to keep me from choking him, and he drank me down without hesitation. I fell back, panting, as his mouth slowly pulled away from me.

“John,” he gasped, straightening, still clutching my hips. “John, need, please...”

I was still dizzy from my own climax, but I reached down and stroked him through his trousers. “Ah!” His hips jerked against my hands. I kept stroking and pulled at his buttons. The moment I could I pulled out his bare prick, and he groaned and spilled in my hand almost at once.

He fell against my chest and I wrapped my free arm around him, leaning to press my face to his hair. We stayed still for some minutes, disordered and entirely satisfied.

“Bed,” Holmes sighed at last.

“I don’t know if I can stand,” I warned him.

“Neither do I,” he replied. “My knees are not quite used to this anymore.” I held out my clean hand and we managed to pull each other up.

There was no question of us separating, but I scanned the room, littered with our clothes, with some worry. Holmes merely pulled a handkerchief from the table, handed it to me, and kicked my shirt and jacket behind a pile of papers. He threw a blanket over the seat of the settee as I cleaned my hands and turned off the gas, and then ushered me into his bedroom.

“It will do well enough,” he said, shutting and locking the door firmly. “They are only disguises, and it is not as though anyone in this house expects my sitting room to be tidy.” He finished undressing us with quick, casual movements. “Come to bed, John.”

Where else would I go?

The sheets were cool and smooth; Holmes was warm. We reached for each other without thought.

The next day I placed advertisements in the papers for the sale of my practice, and began to pack my things. I had mostly adjusted to the memories of Mary that they held, and let myself focus on her remembered voice as she had spoken of Holmes. She would not object, I thought, to my relocation, whether or not she would ever have understood the rest of it. Perhaps she would have. Holmes had said more than once that I underestimated her.

I had known that Holmes paid particular attention to the advertisements in the papers, but I did not fully realize the implications until the next day, when a young doctor named Verner appeared at my doorstep asking to see the practice. I had my suspicions as to his origins, but I held myself to setting a fair price for the practice, which was really not worth very much after my long neglect of it.

He accepted it at once, and at once I began to move. There was confusion and disruption for days, but at last matters were settled and Holmes and I could sit together in front of our fire with the secure knowledge that I could stay the night, and every night thereafter.

“Have you been busy?” I asked, smiling at him and attempting not to look too infatuated.

“Not at all; in fact I have had very little to do, besides clearing up the rest of the _Friesland_ case.”

“The criminals have been handed over to Lestrade, then?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How did they manage all that without the captain noticing?”

“The man is a notorious drunk. Watson, must we talk about that bloody boat?”

I laughed at him, and he mock-glared at me. “It was a dreadful series of mistakes on my part.”

“Not at all. You caught them, didn’t you?”

“Only because they couldn’t convince their captain to leave port sooner than scheduled.”

“Still,” I said. “It was brilliantly done.”

He snorted. “Well, don’t ask me to recount every detail. You were there for most of it.”

“I suppose I cannot write about it, then.”

“Please don’t.” The laughter faded. “I don’t want to remember that, Watson.”

“One would think I would be more shy of it than you. You were truly harmed. But I do see.”

“Mm,” was Holmes’ only answer, and he stared at the fire for some time. “Is there anything you truly want to know?” he asked eventually.

“Well, the motive. I suppose they charged a high rate for it, but it seems rather risky.”

“The ringleader was charged, but not convicted, of at least one crime a little less than a year ago. He managed to get himself out, and turned back for his partner. It seems out of character for a criminal, but we’ve seen the same sort of thing before. After they had managed it successfully once, they realized they could make something of a living off it, and doubtless believed they were immune to failure, as men often do after a string of successes.”

“Ah.” I considered his hunched posture, and rose to join him on the settee. He was trying to make light of the matter, and barely succeeding. At least this time I knew it was concern for me, rather than hurt pride, motivating him, whatever he said aloud. I settled next to him with a hand casually on his thigh. He rested his glass on a side table and leaned against me, and changed the subject.

“I suppose that now I have returned to practice, you will return as well to writing your exaggerations of my talents?”

“It’s rather difficult to write anything at all with you in the room,” I said, “as I believe I have mentioned once or a dozen times.”

“Consider yourself forbidden to write, then,” said he, “as I intend for you to be quite close to me at all times.” He smiled at me, and I smiled back.

“Say rather,” I said, “that I am waiting for your permission to publish, as indicated by your finding yourself a hobby that does not involve pestering me.”

“I am sorry for any difficulties I may cause you that way,” said Holmes, with an unusual degree of concern. “I may dislike the form, but I do respect -”

“My dear Holmes,” I interrupted him, “I wouldn’t trade a thousand stories for the presence of their subject.”

“Ah,” said Holmes, and, if he said no more on the subject, his emotions were still overwhelmingly clear.

**Author's Note:**

> Oof - I intended to finish this in November, and then life happened in many different ways. I hope the delay was worthwhile. And thanks to Knumpify, without whom etc.


End file.
